Chronologically it is film that came first, but not for me. Of course, theaters always projected film in the '80s, when I was growing up, but the provenance of the pictures didn't occupy my mind. Film and its projection were for the guys in the 'back room'. So, my first haptic sense of a movie was a video cassette which output pictures on a television. For most folks of my generation, it must have been the same.
Now my fingers feel only film. An online film forum calls me a "Master Film Handler". I have had a few screenings for friends and family which have gone down well. You see, there is an X-factor to watching a movie on film.
From the audience's POV, I feel there are some uplifting factors. If they arrive early, they can see me thread a reel of film (I even let them touch it!) followed by some image and sound tests. After they are seated, I turn off all lights except one small lamp near the projector. I turn this off too the minute am seated. Now there is a silence, a silence of anticipation. The darkened room lends a certain gravitas to the atmosphere. I turn on the projector and the screen lights up; some viewers now hear the projector's claw for the first time. As they digest this, I check the focus with the, now famous, "countdown" on the leader. My first "countdown" conjured up images of Phalke examining film using, likely, a camera lens for magnification. The "countdown" has an affect, it elevates a movie, takes it beyond what the television or iPad can do. This "countdown" takes the entire exercise of film projection to a new level of seriousness. As the feature starts, it doesn't feel like any other home movie night, neither is it a multiplex with hundreds of people. It feels like cinema ..... an intimate cinema ..... cinema as .... cinema as .... Dibakar Bannerjee realizing, "Raging Bull on film"*, ..... or Zoya Akhtar saying, "We watched Godfather of this wall ... 16mm."**
The end of the first reel gives the audience a chance to take its first breath. But the show must go on, and there's only one man with the power to make that happen. The projectionist switches on the small lamp, takes off the first reel and threads the second.
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*, ** - these are loose quotes taken from video interviews of Dibakar with Masand, and Zoya Akhtar in the series Cinema and Me.
